Black coffee, white lies
by Ophium
Summary: Episode tag to 'What is and what should never be'. Dean says he's fine. Evidence points otherwise. Complete


The sound of a body hitting the floor caught Sam completely unaware. Everything was supposed to be fine. Well, everything was far from fine, but he'd been sure that they were past the 'bodies thudding to the ground' stage. He wouldn't have left the room if he'd thought otherwise.

Fumbling the room key and opening the door to find what he already suspected, Sam could only conclude that he'd been very wrong in his assumptions because Dean, unconscious and sprawled in the space between the two beds, was pretty frigging far from _fine_.

"Dean!"

The beer cans inside the plastic bag he'd been carrying clashed amongst themselves in a cacophony of iced metal as Sam dumped the bag on the floor. The two large coffees, carefully placed on a little Styrofoam tray, were left abandoned to gravity while the pizza, box already crumpled from his gut wrenching reaction even before opening the door, landed surprisingly flat and steady on the nearest bed. The smell of pepperoni filled the room, too strong and bloody and _alive_.

Dean was on the floor at the foot of the twin beds, body curled on itself, like he had tried to make himself smaller as the ground grew closer. And he was on the floor because, obviously, he was fine. And Sam had believed him.

Fine, like when Dean said that he was going to check one last warehouse and be done with hunting the Djinn before returning to Sam.

Fine, like when Dean said that he was dealing with their father's death but couldn't picture the man alive even when trapped in a wish-world.

Every thing was just _fine_.

And Sam was a midget. Clearly.

"Dean, come on!" Sam demanded as he knelt down next to his brother. He clasped his hands tight around Dean's shoulders and shook, perhaps a bit harder than necessary. "You said you felt okay, 'no need for hospitals, Sammy'... so don't you fuck do this to me now."

He had said that. But Sam had been the fool in that tale, for believing it.

Dean was alive and that had been Sam's solemn focus, even as he ignored the quiver in Dean's voice, the way his freckles stood out on a too pale face, the way his skin felt ice cold where they incidentally brushed hands.

Dean was fine and Sam wanted to believe that so bad that he had ignored what was right in front of him.

How could Dean not be okay when he had found the strength to kill the Djinn on his own? How could Dean be weak, when he'd found the strength to carry that girl all the way from the Djinn's lair to the Impala?

"Sam?"

It was raspy and it was groggy, but it was a sign of life and Sam wasn't above celebrating small victories. "Yeah, Dean... you passed out," he said, feeling the need to state the obvious. To Sam's credit, Dean was looking kind of lost.

"I'm fine," came the usual, automatic, response, accompanied by the pushing away as soon as he realized he was being coddled.

Sam could bet his front teeth that the words didn't even registered with Dean anymore. The mantra had become a second skin, an exoskeleton made of pasta and Sam had had enough of it. "No, dammit! You're not fine," he exploded, hands forgotten on his brother's shoulders tightening into a grip that could only be bruising. "You're always pulling crap like that, acting like an idiot with something to prove and the only thing that accomplishes is worrying everyone around you to the point of being sick."

Sam was out of breathe when he finished, surprised that his tirade hadn't been interrupted at any time by the object of his anger. That was certainly a first.

Dean was quietly staring at him, sitting on the floor in between the two beds and a wooden table that had been painted at least two different colors, watching the room like he hadn't seen it before.

"Dean?" Sam tried again, thinking that maybe his rage had come too soon and he really should be rushing his brother to the ER instead of yelling at him. His cheeks turned crimson at the thought and Sam exchanged his grip on Dean's shoulders to his face. He palmed Dean's cheek, opening one eye to check for focus, mechanical gestures that required no permission or prelude. "Dean... you with me?"

"It didn't work," Dean whispered, pushing the inquiring hands away. It was so faintly at first that Sam was hard pressed to understand what he'd said at all. "It didn't work."

Before Sam could even venture a guess to what his brother was going on about, Dean was scrambling to his feet, feet stumbling over one another, hands pressed against the rough mattress for support.

For one insane moment, Sam imagined that maybe Dean was rushing to the bathroom. After all, it was _fine_ to feel sick after losing one's senses, right?

The sight of Dean holding one of the guns that had been left on top of the table for cleaning was so far from fine that Sam felt the whole fabric of reality melting around him. "Dean... what are you doing?"

Sam was doing his best to ignore the obvious, the so painfully obvious that he had to work hard at it. Because the business end of the gun was aiming at Dean's head and there were tears in his eyes, and he was looking around like a lunatic, searching for something or someone that Sam could not guess and there was only one way that whole set up could go.

Sam could easily guess was what was going inside Dean's head. His brother thought that he was back inside the Djinn's imaginary world.

And he was, once more, ready to do the one thing that had gotten him out the first time. Old wives' tale... kill yourself and the dream's over.

"Dean... this is NOT a dream," Sam said as quickly as his brain connected the dots. "You pull that trigger now, you die. For real."

Dean's chuckle was the last thing Sam wanted to hear at that point.

"You said the exact same thing before," Dean told him, looking at Sam like he was a stranger. The brother from the dream world that had nothing in common with him. It hurt to be looked at like that.

"Look," Sam tried again, shy step forward, placating hands. "I understand that it must be a bit confusing to tell apart reality and dream after all you've been through, but you gotta believe me, Dean... this is real."

There was nothing in that room or around them that Sam could use to ground Dean into reality, nothing surrounding them that felt or meant anything in particular for either of them. Except for Sam himself. "Trust me."

The gun faltered in Dean's hand and Sam took his chance. He didn't cared if the waver of Dean's fingers meant he had believed Sam's words or if the weight of the weapon had finally tired him. Sam just jumped.

The discharge of a weapon at such close range rattled every bone in Sam's body, so fiercely that it was impossible for him to know if he'd gained an extra hole or not.

The sickening feeling of hot liquid soaking his shirt made Sam's heart beat faster. He prayed that it was coming from him. He wished for it so hard that if a spontaneous bullet hole were a possible thing, Sam would've been the first to get it.

"Dean?" The hope was still there, in his voice, even as Sam's hands pawed over Dean's body. "I'll fucking kill you if that bullet—"

Dean was under him, eyes opened and blinking slowly, looking at Sam like he was seeing him for the first time. His face, barely with color before, was growing pasty white while Sam watched.

"I missed... again," Dean whispered. He then took a long pause, eyebrows scrunching up and nose wrinkling. "My butt's wet."

Sam thought he'd heard wrong. Had he just said 'butt'? Or maybe blood loss was affecting Dean faster than he thought.

Shock. That was it. Dean was going into shock and Sam still hadn't found where that damn bullet had hit him to staunch that bleeding.

There was a patch of wetness in the front of Sam's dark shirt, clinging to his skin like feeble glue. It felt like an wet, accusing, pointing finger, jabbing at Sam's stomach.

"Stay with me, Dean," Sam mumbled, desperately searching for the leak that was slowly stealing his brother from him. He'd almost lost him once already that week. Sam could not go through that again.

"Do you smell coffee?" Dean went on, completely oblivious to the fact that he was bleeding out. "I smell coffee."

Sam sniffed the air. Dean was right.

It was not so much as the strong smell of coffee all around the two of them that gave Sam pause, but the absence of the pungent smell of fresh blood. In a moment of pure illumination, Sam lifted his wet shirt to his nose and took a whiff.

Coffee.

The two large cups that Sam had carried into the room and dumped unceremoniously to the floor had thoroughly soaked the carpet beneath the two of them. And they'd just rolled all over it. Rather than bloodstained, Sam and Dean were _caffeinated_.

"What a waste," Dean let out, looking at the brown stains decorating Sam's shirt and his jeans. There was no way to tell whether he was talking about the clothes or the actual coffee.

Sam resisted the urge to punch his brother in the face. "You're joking, right?" At the confused look on Dean's eyes, Sam puffed and pushed to his feet. "You could've died, _again!_ and it's the waste of coffee all over the floor that registers with you?"

"Well, I am sitting on it," Dean pointed out, slithering away from Sam and widening the distance between them, "which makes it kind of hard to ignore it. And who the hell jumps a guy with a loaded gun? Are you completely nuts?"

Sam bit his lip at that. It had been nuts. But it had also been the only choice he'd had. "I couldn't just stand here and watch you blow your brains out," Sam whispered, letting the fear he'd felt in that fragment of a moment pass clear through his voice. Even saying it out loud hurt.

"He did," Dean let out, his eyes dropping to the coffee stain on the floor. It wasn't even that much of an interestingly shaped stain, but Dean gave it his undivided attention. "I mean, he tried to talk me out of it... they all did, but..."

None of them cared enough to risk their lives over it, Sam could easily guess the words Dean would not voice.

In there, in that wish-world born out of Dean's mind and the Djinn's poison, there was no family love, there was no concern. They were all 'actors', decorating a life that Dean thought he deserved. A life where no one cared enough to risk everything for him.

Dean would die for Sam without batting an eye. And Sam would do exactly the same for him, even if Dean forgot that more often than not.

Sam rested his hand on Dean's knee, the understanding between the two of them passing silently like so many things in their existence. Sam cleared his throat, a shared secret signal between the two of them that meant that feelings were in the area and starting to overwhelm them. "We really should get the hell out of here," he said, his eyes purposely landing on the discarded gun as he got to his feet. "I'm sure someone heard that."

Connecting back to reality, Dean nodded, accepting the help that Sam was offering him to get up. He wavered for a few seconds before finding his balance, Sam's hand and concerned face hovering nearby.

The place was shady enough to not have a five-minute response, but someone would come snooping around eventually. Even it only on the off chance that they'd killed each other off and there was some looting to be had.

"Also, you're buying dinner," Sam added, picking up the few items they had scattered over the room. "If you manage to keep from _fainting_ again."

Dean's right eyebrow rose accordingly. "How do you figure that one? And I did not 'faint'," he added, air quotes and all. "I... manly took an absence of my senses due to... doing something manly while you were away, like—"

Sam chuckled, feeling half the weight that had been pressing down on him ever since Dean's disappearance, slowly lifting from his shoulders. "Please don't say 'jerking off'. And since your _fainting_ ruined the dinner I brought, you totally get to pay for a second one."

"Fine. Burgers it is!"

"We're getting something with lots of vegetables, spinach, carrots... possibly in soup format," Sam amended. Seeing Dean's horrified face, he quickly added. "Or we can drop by the hospital and get you a proper transfusion of that red stuff you're running low on. Totally your call."

Dean sneered, the effect of his aggravation completely ruined by the paleness of his cheeks and the stark contrast his freckles presented. "You're enjoying this way too much, Roger Rabbit. Carrots it is."

Sam smiled again. "Yeah, yeah... Cry me a river, Jessica."

They weren't fine. That much Sam could not deny. But they were back on the same page at least.

And in a very odd, twisted, Winchester way, that _was_ fine.

The end

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><p>AN: Many thanks to Jackfan2 for the beta-work. All remaining mistakes are mine.<p> 


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